Is not like Internet is only 10 years old, but 1995 is definetly the year that started it all for real.

Sharing millions of songs online with friends, googling around, buying and auctioning everything online, being able to set up your own webpage in couple of minutes, dowloading tons of information, watching TV, seeing your friends from the other side of the world and chatting with them online, unlimited online storage… All these are part of our daily lifes, and some of them seem to be here forever.

Well, hardly to believe,  they are here for only 10 years or less, and 1995 was the year when all of them actually started.

Before the Netscape browser illuminated the Web, the internet did not exist for most of the people. If it was aknowledged at all, it was mischaracterizedas either corporate email or a clubhouse for adolescent nerds. And it was hard to used too. Who wanted to waste time on something so boring?

In 1994, Time magazine explained why the internet would never go mainstream: It was not designed for doing commerce, and it does not gracefully accomodate new arrivals, while the February 1995 Newsweek headline readed: The Internet? BAH!.

Some months later, in August 1995, Netscape’s public offering took off, and in a blink, a world of do-it-yourself possibilities was born. Suddenly it became clear that people could create material that anyone with a connection could view. The burgeoning online audience no longer needed traditional media for content. Well, not in an instant, it took almost ten years, but with the Netscape’s stock peaking at $75 on its first day of trading, the world gasped in awe. Was this insanity, or the start of something new?